(1) Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to data fusion, and more particularly to a method of fusing multiple contact data sets for the same contact in order to provide the best-estimate solution identifying the contact's geometric solution, physical attributes, etc.
(2) Description of the Prior Art
A variety of multiple-contact tracking assessment or correlation schemes are known in the art. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,107,271, contact position data is initially processed through a coarse filter. All unrejected data is then passed on to a more stringent nearest-neighbor filter for correlation to a stored contact track. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,355,325, a measurement tree of nodes allows for the correlation between tracks and objects in a multi-contact tracking system. Three-dimensional volume measurements of the objects are correlated to one or more tracks by projecting a contact measurement into three two-dimensional planes. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,392,225, contact data from multiple sensors are correlated to provide a more accurate estimate of contact position. However, without effective fusion of data from multiple types of sensors, a tactical situation "picture" can present conflicting information.